Meta

Author: nickycionoiu

Last weekend we have opened the exhibition of my project “The dirty laundry of Maribor. The exhibition is about the public project I did last week. The project was a big succes and people can still participate during the interactive exhibition. Let’s all hope it will get a lot of response!

During the opening of the exhibition the goal of the project was reached: people really started the discuss all of the different dirty opinions that were written on the laundry. Afterwards, the visitors were able to write down their dirty opinions like we already did during the day of the project. There were some interesting debats! The following weeks we will communicate all of the dirty opinions to the municipality.

Last tuesday, 21 Febraury, I had my project “The dirty Laundry of Maribor”. Some weeks ago I already posted some information about the project on this blog, so in case of you have forgotten something: have a look to the previous post.

I’ve got to say that the project was really a succes. There was a lot of response and people were extremely enthusiastic. Because of those facts, we received a big amount of different opinions, all of them with their truth about it. It also got picked up by the local media and they were very intrigued by the idea that a young, foreign student actually tried to help the city of Maribor.

With this project we have showed the people of Maribor that there still is somekind of active citizenship present in their city. The one thing that caught my attention was that people were very curious about what was happening. Not all of the time people were participating with writing their opinions on the dirty clothes, but on the otherside they we’re reading all of the opinions and started a public discussion. This was my goal: create an open, public discussion!

With all the different materials, photos, videos and opinions that I’ve collected, I will make my own exhibition @EPEKA Gallery. This exhibition will open already this saturday. It will not be a normal exhibition, but an interactive one. What we did during the project day, we will actually also to during the exhibition. People will get a lot of input from the present opinions on the clothes and after they’ve read them, they can form their own opinion and also write them down on the dirty laudry.

Afterwards, we will have again an open, public discussion during the exhibition. Finally, when I have all of the opinions, I will collect them in a document. This document I will communinicate in the Facebookgroup “The voices of Maribor” and to the municipality.

Last week I was for six days in Sinop to participate in a training course for youth workers. The project is called “WHO?”. The answer is “Women”.Women and girls throughout the world experience violence, discrimination, inequality, and poverty. Despite the existence of international covenants, regional treaties and domestic laws intended to codify and realise women’s human rights, the reality is that women and girls are routinely unable to claim their basic rights. They also suffer from a huge rate of unemployment because of lack of necessary competences, responsibility for taking care of children and home and oppressive power of men upon women.

Furthermore, Europe has been dealing with the continous flows of immigrants and refugees especially since the last year. Among them, there are so many women who are struggling to survive, protect and feed their children without any penny. Empowering women in Europe has shown a lot of progress throughout the last decades. But it is still far beyond the expected results.

Sinop Valiligi, as the applicant of the Erasmus+ KA1 Mobility of Youth Workers project “WHO” forsees the situation of women not only in Turkey, but also throughout Europe and launches a training course for the youth leaders and youth workers to empower the
capacity of disadvantaged women / migrant women to develop their initiative skills in order to participate in the labour market and provide competences for the organisations to establish their social enterprises in favour of young women.

The training course was extremely interesting in my opinion. I’ve have met a lot of inspiring people and the several experiences of the working process were learning full. Again, I have enriched myself and I’m very grateful to be part of this project.

The last days were very productively. First of all I gave a presentation about the importance of a youth worker in the work framework of the Fair Employment project. It’s important to help youngsters in their process of development and finding their own identity. When the youngsters truly know what they stand for and who they are, they will be in a better position to fight the world. This process of self-development is a never ending story of course! If you possess more and more self-knowledge, you will create opportunities for yourself. This fact we should not forget in case of job opportunities. As an example, we can use the Roma workshops. Through informal education we can develop new skills (English basics, exploring new talents, etc…), which the Roma can use for self-development and even in search of a new job.

Second I’m starting up a new project, called “The dirty laundry of Maribor”. The project is a social project with public participation. There is a English saying that goes like: “To air your dirty laundry”. We are going to implement this saying into reality! What’s your opinion about problems in Maribor? What do you think about this city? Do you have met any struggles in Maribor? The people have to tell us.
They can participate 17 February 2017 during “The dirty laundry of Maribor – project”. Write down your opinion and issues on the dirty laundry hanging at a public clothesline. Combine your strength and tell us what is happening in Maribor. At the end, we will collect all of the opinions and communicate them to the municipality. Through active citizenship we can actually change something!

In the end of February I will make an exhibition about the project in the EPEKA gallery. Also we will put all of the opinions in the Facebook community “The voices of Maribor”. Here we can discuss afterwards and take further action!

Today I had a first workshop with minority youngsters with a Roma background. This workshop was about mixing elements of Balkan and Roma music, combined with the modern dance music. The language that we spoke was English, not evident for the youngsters, but necessary for their development in society. The start looks promising, but there is still a lot to be learned!

To begin I have to mention that the past 2 weeks were very interesting. I’ve met a lot of people, who al had their part in youth work. The first week I got to know the working processes of EPEKA and more in general cultural organisations (NGO’s). There are divers projects running thanks to EPEKA, not only with a art component but also others like employment, minorities, etc…

Because of artneighboryouth, I was able to do my internship in Maribor. For this reason, I have to keep the whole concept of artneighboryouth in mind while I’m fulfilling my internship. This is why I started the project “The voices of Maribor”.

This Facebookpage and project has been made to create public discussion about social matters, problems, thorny issues and solutions in Maribor. Everyone can join and speak out about their opinion. Almost every subject can be a topic to talk about: politics, employment, public space, art, inclusion, public services for youngsters and many more!

In February I want to create an exhibition about the most inspiring and intriguing post/opinions of the people of Maribor.

At this very moment I’m doing research to find problems in the society of Maribor. I’m interviewing youngsters to get lots of information, because they can give me lots of information and subjects to discuss about. Out of this research, I’ll gather different elements to start the first discussion. Let’s hope the people will response!

Dear followers, the following two months I will take place as an intern @EPEKA Slovenia, as a Belgian student from the UCLL. My task is to contribute in several projects organised by EPEKA. It’s going to be a wonderfull and learning process. One of the projects I will contribute to is the Artneighboryouth project.

Yesterday I arrived at the beautiful country of Slovenia. Stefan, president of EPEKA, invited me at his home for diner. I also met the rest of the EPEKA crew at the diner. All of them welcomed me with open arms, I already felt home! We had different conversations on various issues of society, which were extremely interesting to follow in my opinion.

After the diner, our first meeting began. It was a very instructive experience. We talked about the ongoing projects and what we had to do next. It’s clear for me that EPEKA is an organization that truly wants to change something in Society. It was a very inspiring experience. Today I will have my first day of work, I’m curious!